I
IT was ten o'clock in the evening and the full moon was shining
over the garden. In the Shumins' house an evening service celebrated
at the request of the grandmother, Marfa Mihalovna, was just over,
and now Nadya--she had gone into the garden for a minute--could
see the table being laid for supper in the dining-room, and her
grandmother bustling about in her gorgeous silk dress; Father Andrey,
a chief priest of the cathedral, was talking to Nadya's mother,
Nina Ivanovna, and now in the evening light through the window her
mother for some reason looked very young; Andrey Andreitch, Father
Andrey's son, was standing by listening attentively.
It was still and cool in the garden, and dark peaceful shadows lay
on the ground. There was a sound of frogs croaking, far, far away
beyond the town. There was a feeling of May, sweet May! One drew
deep breaths and longed to fancy that not here but far away under
the sky, above the trees, far away in the open country, in the
fields and the woods, the life of spring was unfolding now, mysterious,
lovely, rich and holy beyond the understanding of weak, sinful man.
And for some reason one wanted to cry.
She, Nadya, was already twenty-three. Ever since she was sixteen
she had been passionately dreaming of marriage and at last she was
engaged to Andrey Andreitch, the young man who was standing on the
other side of the window; she liked him, the wedding was already
fixed for July 7, and yet there was no joy in her heart, she was
sleeping badly, her spirits drooped. . . . She could hear from the
open windows of the basement where the kitchen was the hurrying
servants, the clatter of knives, the banging of the swing door;
there was a smell of roast turkey and pickled cherries, and for
some reason it seemed to her that it would be like that all her
life, with no change, no end to it.
Some one came out of the house and stood on the steps; it was
Alexandr Timofeitch, or, as he was always called, Sasha, who had
come from Moscow ten days before and was staying with them. Years
ago a distant relation of the grandmother, a gentleman's widow
called Marya Petrovna, a thin, sickly little woman who had sunk
into poverty, used to come to the house to ask for assistance. She
had a son Sasha. It used for some reason to be said that he had
talent as an artist, and when his mother died Nadya's grandmother
had, for the salvation of her soul, sent him to the Komissarovsky
school in Moscow; two years later he went into the school of painting,
spent nearly fifteen years there, and only just managed to scrape
through the leaving examination in the section of architecture. He
did not set up as an architect, however, but took a job at a
lithographer's. He used to come almost every year, usually very
ill, to stay with Nadya's grandmother to rest and recover.
He was wearing now a frock-coat buttoned up, and shabby canvas
trousers, crumpled into creases at the bottom. And his shirt had
not been ironed and he had somehow all over a look of not being
fresh. He was very thin, with big eyes, long thin fingers and a
swarthy bearded face, and all the same he was handsome. With the
Shumins he was like one of the family, and in their house felt he
was at home. And the room in which he lived when he was there had
for years been called Sasha's room. Standing on the steps he saw
Nadya, and went up to her.
"It's nice here," he said.
"Of course it's nice, you ought to stay here till the autumn."
"Yes, I expect it will come to that. I dare say I shall stay with
you till September."
He laughed for no reason, and sat down beside her.
"I'm sitting gazing at mother," said Nadya. "She looks so young
from here! My mother has her weaknesses, of course," she added,
after a pause, "but still she is an exceptional woman."
"Yes, she is very nice . . ." Sasha agreed. "Your mother, in her
own way of course, is a very good and sweet woman, but . . . how
shall I say? I went early this morning into your kitchen and there
I found four servants sleeping on the floor, no bedsteads, and rags
for bedding, stench, bugs, beetles . . . it is just as it was twenty
years ago, no change at all. Well, Granny, God bless her, what else
can you expect of Granny? But your mother speaks French, you know,
and acts in private theatricals. One would think she might understand."
As Sasha talked, he used to stretch out two long wasted fingers
before the listener's face.
"It all seems somehow strange to me here, now I am out of the habit
of it," he went on. "There is no making it out. Nobody ever does
anything. Your mother spends the whole day walking about like a
duchess, Granny does nothing either, nor you either. And your Andrey
Andreitch never does anything either."
Nadya had heard this the year before and, she fancied, the year
before that too, and she knew that Sasha could not make any other
criticism, and in old days this had amused her, but now for some
reason she felt annoyed.
"That's all stale, and I have been sick of it for ages," she said
and got up. "You should think of something a little newer."
He laughed and got up too, and they went together toward the house.
She, tall, handsome, and well-made, beside him looked very healthy
and smartly dressed; she was conscious of this and felt sorry for
him and for some reason awkward.
"And you say a great deal you should not," she said. "You've just
been talking about my Andrey, but you see you don't know him."
"My Andrey. . . . Bother him, your Andrey. I am sorry for your
youth."
They were already sitting down to supper as the young people went
into the dining-room. The grandmother, or Granny as she was called
in the household, a very stout, plain old lady with bushy eyebrows
and a little moustache, was talking loudly, and from her voice and
manner of speaking it could be seen that she was the person of most
importance in the house. She owned rows of shops in the market, and
the old-fashioned house with columns and the garden, yet she prayed
every morning that God might save her from ruin and shed tears as
she did so. Her daughter-in-law, Nadya's mother, Nina Ivanovna, a
fair-haired woman tightly laced in, with a pince-nez, and diamonds
on every finger, Father Andrey, a lean, toothless old man whose
face always looked as though he were just going to say something
amusing, and his son, Andrey Andreitch, a stout and handsome young
man with curly hair looking like an artist or an actor, were all
talking of hypnotism.
"You will get well in a week here," said Granny, addressing Sasha.
"Only you must eat more. What do you look like!" she sighed. "You
are really dreadful! You are a regular prodigal son, that is what
you are."
"After wasting his father's substance in riotous living," said
Father Andrey slowly, with laughing eyes. "He fed with senseless
beasts."
"I like my dad," said Andrey Andreitch, touching his father on the
shoulder. "He is a splendid old fellow, a dear old fellow."
Everyone was silent for a space. Sasha suddenly burst out laughing
and put his dinner napkin to his mouth.
"So you believe in hypnotism?" said Father Andrey to Nina Ivanovna.
"I cannot, of course, assert that I believe," answered Nina Ivanovna,
assuming a very serious, even severe, expression; "but I must own
that there is much that is mysterious and incomprehensible in
nature."
"I quite agree with you, though I must add that religion distinctly
curtails for us the domain of the mysterious."
A big and very fat turkey was served. Father Andrey and Nina Ivanovna
went on with their conversation. Nina Ivanovna's diamonds glittered
on her fingers, then tears began to glitter in her eyes, she grew
excited.
"Though I cannot venture to argue with you," she said, "you must
admit there are so many insoluble riddles in life!"
"Not one, I assure you."
After supper Andrey Andreitch played the fiddle and Nina Ivanovna
accompanied him on the piano. Ten years before he had taken his
degree at the university in the Faculty of Arts, but had never held
any post, had no definite work, and only from time to time took
part in concerts for charitable objects; and in the town he was
regarded as a musician.
Andrey Andreitch played; they all listened in silence. The samovar
was boiling quietly on the table and no one but Sasha was drinking
tea. Then when it struck twelve a violin string suddenly broke;
everyone laughed, bustled about, and began saying good-bye.
After seeing her fiancé out, Nadya went upstairs where she and her
mother had their rooms (the lower storey was occupied by the
grandmother). They began putting the lights out below in the
dining-room, while Sasha still sat on drinking tea. He always spent
a long time over tea in the Moscow style, drinking as much as seven
glasses at a time. For a long time after Nadya had undressed and
gone to bed she could hear the servants clearing away downstairs
and Granny talking angrily. At last everything was hushed, and
nothing could be heard but Sasha from time to time coughing on a
bass note in his room below.